The truly blessed man, or, The way to be happy here, and forever being…

2. The operation of those Afflictions is vastly divers, and thereby God discovers what his thoughts are concerning the one and the other. They do not alike improve these providences; which is from the influence of grace on the one, which is with held from the other; for,

1. The everlasting state of the Justified Believer is safe under all these afflictions. Whatever tossings and changes he here passeth under, it is certain he shall never finally miscarry; if he loseth every thing else, even life it self, he shall not lose his Soul; the Everlasting Covenant stands fast, and cannot be broken, 2 Sam. 23. 5. The end will be peace, Psal. 37. 37. This is all the trouble that he shall over meet with, and when it is over, he shall have peace for ever: nothing shall separate him from Gods love, Rom. 8. 38, 39. But the wicked are not so: these are the beginnings of sorrows, and a prologue to more awful miseries that are to come afterwards: they are the fruits of the Curse, whose operation will be to bring them to the pit where there is no hope.

2. The afflictions themselves are under a promise of a good issue. Though they are for a while molestful, and hard to bear, yet they shall work to an happy end: the Psalmist could allot on this, Psal. 73. 24. And the Apostle confirms it, Heb. 12. 11